By: Steve Wilmot
Nearly a decade ago, I came across a new book by Arron Chambers: “Jesus, I Want To Be Fanatically Devoted to You,” with the sub-title, “Isn’t It Time to Fall More in Love With Jesus?”
It’s a book I desperately needed in that season of my life. My relationship with Jesus had become comfortable and safe. My passion had dimmed. Things were not like they once were.
I constantly fight the drift into complacency and settling for less than what God wants for me. Maybe that’s where you are today.
You know there’s something more. You’ve experienced it, but now something is… different. Not quite right. You don’t feel the same way toward God you once did and you’re not content to let things to stay that way.
Paul lets the Ephesian Christians in on what he’s praying for them. “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better” (Ephesians 1.15-17).
By putting knowing God better and better as the priority of his prayers for the Ephesian believers, he’s telling us how important it is.
David Murray writes, “”What we think and believe about God, about ourselves, about others, about our problems, and about our world dictates and determines the quality of our whole lives: our happiness, our relationships, our creativity, our productivity, and even our physical health.”
Sounds like knowing God is directly connected with being happy and many other things. Let us never grow satisfied with the quality and depth of our relationship with God. Never.
Not even Moses with all his encounters and experiences with God fell into that trap. He didn’t want to coast along at his present level of knowing God.
Shortly after Israel’s horrific sin with the golden calf at the foot of Mt. Sinai, God tells Moses it’s time to move on from that place toward the Promised Land. You’d think that Moses would ask God for direction. Or courage. Or patience with these constantly complaining people.
But what he asked instead amazes me: “Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory’” (Exodus 33.18). What was he saying? He was saying, “God I know there is more to you than I know right now. Show me more of who you are.”
That’s the prayer I want to pray daily. That’s the prayer I hope you will pray daily. There is so much more to know about God. So many misconceptions of what he is like to correct.
Chambers asks readers of his book to “write a description of Jesus, as if you were describing him to someone who has never heard of him.”
Here’s what I wrote: Jesus is the best thing that has ever happened to me. He is the exact representation of God. If you want to know what God is like and what he likes, look at and listen to Jesus.
Jesus is the payment for my sins — those I did intentionally and those I didn’t want to do but did anyway. He pays the penalty for them all so that I don’t have to suffer the punishment I deserve.
But Jesus is not only the payment for my sin, but He is also my pattern for living. To learn how to live life to the fullest, watch how Jesus lived and follow him.
Jesus is my best friend, even when I’m distant and not talkative. Jesus is the one who is transforming and changing my life for the better daily.
In the early 2010s, my family and I experienced three difficult years as I’ve struggled with one health issue after another. From cancer to complications from cancer. From tests and surgeries to all the uncertainties about how it would all turn out.
But through it all he picked me up when I fell and gave me strength to fight on. He created a yearning for him even when I was distracted by trying to survive day to day.
He gave me peace when everything happening around me tempted me to worry. In those times, I found his words to be true: “Peace I leave you. My peace I give to you. I do not give as the world gives. So let not your heart be troubled, and do not be afraid” (John 14.27).
And as good as all that was, I know the best is yet to come. I’m not yet what I’m going to be. I’ll become more like Jesus with each passing year. And I’ll get to spend eternity getting to know him better and better as we fall more and more in love in heaven.
Because Jesus found me and loved me and changed me I will truly live happily ever after. Everything I hope to be, I will be.
Jesus is the best thing that has ever happened to me! How would you describe Jesus? Who is he to you?
Whatever you’d say, there is more — so much more — to know and experience. So, like Moses may your prayer be: “Lord, show me your glory!”
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Steve Wilmot is a former Edgerton, Ohio area pastor who now seeks “to still bear fruit in old age” through writing. He is the author of seven books designed to assist believers to make steady progress on their spiritual journey.